Clair Cooper is a passionate and innovative creative thinker and social scientist currently working on the Research England Hydrogen Innovation project (www.rehip.co.uk) where she is a just transitions fellow. Clair's research explores how industry, policy makers and communities percieve a transition to a low carbon future using hydrogen. This work builds on her post doctoral role with ERC NovelEco project (www.NovelEco.eu) at Trinity College Dublin where she used co-design methods to co-produce research questions to aid the development of a citizen science tool. 

While studying for her PhD, Clair worked independently as a social value consultant adopting a mixed method approach to evaluate the impact that nature-based solutions have on employability, health and well-being and connectedness to nature. Recent projects include Social Impact of the Revitalising Our Estuaries and  the Wild West End project.

In previous roles, Clair was a Demand Planning Project Manager with Northumbrian Water where she was responsible for the design and implementation of water efficiency projects including commissioning studies or contracts with external stakeholders to ensure delivery of regulatory targets. Clair also has considerable experience of writing and developing guidance and strategies such as the development of the Environment Agency’s water resource planning guideline.

Research and impact experience:

• Engagement with industry, policy makers, SMEs and third sector organisations to understand how different stakeholders perceive just transition to a low carbon future.
• Drawing on co-design methods, worked collaboratively with communities to explore how they perceive urban wild spaces and implications for environmental stewardship.

Methodological expertise:

Qualitative and quantitative research methods and analytical techniques including:

• Participatory workshops and focus groups
• Co-design methods including photo-elicitation, photo-walk focus groups and backcasting methods
• Stakeholder interviewing
• Public surveys
• Geometric data analysis methods such as PCA, MFA or correspondence analysis

Clair is also an emerging scholar publishing peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Landuse Policy, Environmental Science and Policy, Sustainability Science and Energy Research and Society.

Current research topics, looking for collaborators

• Just transitions for sustainable energy transformation
• Social value assessment and its contribution to a just transition
• Basic energy needs of vulnerable communities and the impact of decarbonisation
• Societal readiness assessments for low carbon technology
• Green skills and employability
• Public perception of low carbon technologies and natural environment including nature-based solutions and urban novel ecosystems

Currently funded projects;

Just transition fellow on the 'Growing Teesside’s Hydrogen Economy and Catalysing a Just Transition to Net Zero. Research England Development' (RED) Fund. 2022-2027. (led by Prof N. Dawood and Prof T. Roskilly).

Co-I on the 'Basic energy needs for thermal comfort in small island communities' (CDICE Heating and Cooling Network++) (PI, Dr Paolo Cherubini, Island Centre for Net Zero Herriot-Watt University)

Co-I on the 'Green Skills and Economic Inactivity: the role of Carbon Freeports' (PI, Prof. Matthew Cotton and Prof. Paul Crawshaw)